


The Three Faces of Banner

by NezumiPi



Category: Avengers (Comics), Incredible Hulk - All Media Types, Marvel, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Conversion Disorder, Mental Hospital, Not AU, Psychological Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-12 01:45:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NezumiPi/pseuds/NezumiPi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hulk saved the Earth from certain destruction by Galactus.<br/>Bruce Banner is alive but unresponsive, practically comatose.<br/>Hulk caused the deaths of millions of civilians.<br/>Bruce Banner is in an adolescent psychiatric ward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

_Mission Report of Clint Barton aka Hawkeye_

Galactus eats planets.

That sounds so stupid, like something an eight-year-old would come up with while jabbing a bad-guy doll with his collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

You would think that it started sounding a lot less stupid when Galactus tried to eat Earth, but no, it still just sounded like a stupid way to die.

All of Earth's heroes tried to fight him off. Even some villains got in on the act because losing Earth meant losing their subterrainean lairs and creepy Eastern European nations and whatnot. And besides, some of those guys just like fighting.

None of it was making a dent. Not Thor, not the Sentry, not a mix-and-match fun pack of nuclear missiles.

Banner Hulked out, obviously. He punched Galactus in the face a couple of times, which must've been satisfying, but didn't leave so much as a bruise.

And that's when it happened. The Hulk is what happens when Banner gets angry, and I guess this is what happens when the Hulk gets angry. Stark called it the Worldbreaker and that's as good a name as any. It was huge and I swear to God you could hear its heartbeat from ten blocks away.

The Worldbreaker Hulk told Galactus he would destroy the planet before he let Galactus eat it. I couldn't hear what Galactus said back, but I'm guessing he didn't believe the Hulk. So the Hulk, the Worldbreaker, he proved it. He stamped down on the San Andreas Fault and it started moving. He ripped the West Coast of California up from the ground and he threw it into space. Galactus punched it back to the ground, but everybody on it was already dead, and so was everybody they landed on.

The point, as far as I'm concerned, is that it worked. It worked when nothing else did. Galactus decided not to eat Earth because the Hulk proved he would ruin the meal.

And yeah, a lot of people died. A lot. They're saying millions. It doesn't even seem real.

In the chaos of it all, when the battle ended, there was no way to get to Banner and break the news…I mean, Banner's not made of glass, but we normally try to tell him stuff like this…I don't know, I don't want to say 'gently' because that doesn't sound right, but I can't think of a better word. Before we could get to him, he must have seen all the bodies, all the destruction. He was right in the middle of it, after all.

I guess I don't know for sure what happened then. All I know is that I was the first one to find him, in the middle of all that debris. No reason I found him, just chance. We were all looking. He looked dead. He really looked dead.

He wasn't dead, though, just knocked out.

And he hasn't woken up since.


	2. Id

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Worldbreaker** – Not my term, it came from the Incredible Hulk comic storyline in which the Hulk was exiled from Earth and ended up on a fierce and violent planet where he was believed to be either the savior or the end of the world – the latter role earning him the title of Worldbreaker.
> 
> **Canonicity –** To the extent that it matters, this story uses the traditional comics background for Bruce Banner (or something similar to it), not the alternate backstory I made up in The Avengers Time Bomb Initiative.
> 
> **Realism** – I usually try to get my psychology and mental health treatments as accurate as possible. That doesn't apply to this story, for reasons that either are or will be apparent.
> 
> * * *

"Medically," said Reed Richards, "he's fine. I can't even find evidence of concussion."

"He's often tired after the Hulk takes over," said Rogers. "The Hulk was more powerful this time. Couldn't this just be exhaustion?"

Reed wasn't actually looking at the gathered Avengers. Instead, he was alternately squinting at electroencephalogram outputs and rearranging columns of numbers. "Given Banner's unique physiology, anything is possible, but given his pattern of reflexes, cranial nerve conductance, and the circumstances surrounding his condition, I think a functional explanation is far better supported."

"What do you mean," asked Rogers, "by a 'functional' explanation?"

"He's calling Bruce crazy," said Tony. "Right? 'Functional' means that it's all in his head."

"Yes, 'functional' means psychogenic," said Reed, "and I fail to see how this is surprising. Dr. Banner had already shown himself quite prone to the very dissociative phenomena that underlie pseudoneurological symptomatology."

For a moment, no one spoke. Then, Barton rubbed at both temples with one hand. "All right," he said, "I'm going to be the one to admit I have no idea what anything you just said means. Pretend for a moment that some of us don't have six PhD's and explain it again."

Reed sighed derisively. "Dissociation is the process by which a conscious mind splits or distorts itself, allowing the mind to avoid being overloaded by an unmanageable perception, cognition, or affect. It presumably underlies the relationship between the Doctor," Reed gestured to Banner's still form, "and his alter ego."

* * *

"So you're the new guy, huh? I heard we were getting another one. My name's Tony Stark and you're either Steven Rogers or you stole his backpack. Is that why you're in here? Compulsive stealing? Nah, probably not. You don't look like the type. And if you were a thief, you'd have a better hat." Tony was aggressively shaking Steve Rogers' hand throughout this entire monologue.

"Um," said Steve, bewildered and just a bit defensive, "I didn't steal any…I mean, I'm Steve. And I like my hat. I like the Dodgers." He gave Tony's hand one final shake before he quite deliberately withdrew his own. "They said I should put my stuff on one of the empty beds." He took off his backpack and held it uncertainly. "They searched my bag."

"Yeah, you'll get used to that. They search everything around here. Can't let all the crazy folk get weapons and whatnot."

Steve looked around the room. It was arranged so there were eight alcoves, each with a bed and a nightstand, with holes bored out in the solid plastic forming shelves for clothes and personal items. They would have personal space then, but not privacy. Five of the alcoves were clearly inhabited; Steve put his backpack down in one of the other three.

So this was it. He was really in a mental hospital. It seemed so surreal. He would rather be in prison. He looked back at the fast-talking boy who had greeted him. He wasn't sure what he had expected, but that wasn't it.

Steve sat down on the bed he'd just claimed, planning to allot himself no more than sixty seconds of self-pity, but Tony interrupted him.

"Let me show you the ropes. I know this place up and down."

"How long have you been here?" Steve had been thinking he would stay a week, maybe two, but this boy had obviously be in residence much longer than that.

"Oh, only a month or two this time."

"This time?"

"C'mon," Tony tugged at his arm. "I'll show you around." Tony pointed to a tall, blonde teen who was staring intently out the window. "That's Thor. Well, we're not supposed to call him that. His real name is Donnie Blake, but he only answers to Thor. He's totally nuts, thinks he's a god."

"Like Jesus?"

"No, like Thor, duh. You know, the guy who invented Thursday? Anyways, he's really cool. He talks all weird like bad Shakespeare, but he's always up for a game or if you're ever bored, just ask him to regale you with tales of glorious battle." Tony waved at the boy. "Hey Thor! This is Steve, he's new. Say hi."

"Greetings on this most fair of days, dear Steven. May your battles be many and victorious."

Steve waved. "Hi. It's…uh…nice to meet you."

Tony pointed to a red-headed girl who was absently flipping through a magazine. "That's Natasha. Her family is like the Mafia or something. I think she's in here because they couldn't make extortion charges stick or something. Don't cross her."

Steve nodded. He hadn't even thought much about what the other patients would be like, or the possibility that they might be dangerous.

"And there's one more, a guy named Clint. He's kind of a dick sometimes, but he's not bad. He's got agoraphobia so they take him off the ward every day and make him go places he doesn't want to go, which ends up about as well as you would expect."

As if on cue, there was a frantic pounding on the door to the ward. "Let me in! Let me in! Fuck it! Let me in, you bastards! I hate you! I hate all of you! Why won't you leave me alone?!"

Tony grinned, clearly used to the display.

"Is there," Steve glanced back, "a boy following us?"

"Oh, don't worry about him. That's Bruce. He just shuffles around and talks to himself. We've seen each other a lot on this ward."

Steve turned and walked back to the whispering boy whose sweatshirt hood nearly obscured his face. "Hi," he said, extending a hand in greeting. "I'm Steve. I guess I'm going to be here for a few days.

Bruce's eyes darted up and then back down. "Hey," he muttered. "You're not crazy. Why are you here?"

"I…I'd rather not say," said Steve.

"Ha," snorted Bruce, "good luck with that. All they do around here is talk. They love to talk." And with that, he shuffled away.

Tony seemed unperturbed by the interaction. "Anyways, breakfast is at eight, lunch is at noon, dinner is at six. They say you don't have to go to meals, but they keep track of how much you eat. The food sucks, but it's edible. At ten, we have morning group which is skills and then after lunch we have afternoon group which is touchy-feely stuff. They take us down to the rec room after dinner. OT comes by on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and it's usually crafts and stuff, but sometimes it's not bad – last week we got to make frosting."

Steve nodded. This sounded more like what he had expected: a schedule, therapy, rules.

The agoraphobic boy continued to pound on the door, "WHY WON'T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?!"

* * *

Bruce is sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by papers. Betty is standing in front of him, wearing a very revealing outfit. She's singing along with the radio as it plays the B-52s, a newly rinsed spatula acting as a makeshift microphone. She's dancing closer and closer until it's practically a lap dance.

" _Hot pants explosion,_ " sings Betty, hips gyrating, _"at the factory._ " The next line is from the male vocalist, so Betty points the spatula at Bruce. He looks amused and shakes his head.

"How am I supposed to work on my thesis when you keep redirecting bloodflow away from my brain?" Bruce wears the tiniest smirk.

Betty stretches in a way that emphasizes her breasts. She knows what Bruce likes. "Maybe I don't want you to be working on your thesis."

"I just need twenty-five more minutes until I'm at a good stopping point."

Betty picks up an egg timer. She sets it and puts it on the table. "Twenty-five minutes, Bruce." She kisses the top of his head. "I'll see you in a little bit."

It's later and they're in bed and they're naked, lying on top of the covers because it's summer and the AC is broken. Betty looks blissful and the room smells of sex.

"Bruce," she says, "are you happy?"

"What?" He lifts her hand and kisses it. "Of course I'm happy. I have work I love and I'm on my way to my second doctorate. I have you and I know I should have listed that first, but I swear this isn't in order of importance. And we had chicken with Spanish rice for dinner, which is my favorite. And here I am lying on this bed with exactly one-point-six pillows beneath my head, which – as we have previously discussed – is the ideal number of pillows."

(Bruce had cut them both perfect-height pillows out of blocks of foam. Betty had been forced to admit that they were surprisingly comfortable.)

"You don't look happy," says Betty.

"Sure I do. This is my happy face. This is what I look like when I'm happy."

"Don't move a muscle," says Betty, and she walks across the room to get her Polaroid camera off of the dresser. She aims it at Bruce and takes a picture.

"Don't shake it," says Bruce. "That actually does nothing to speed the chemical reaction and can even-"

"What's the rule about chemistry?"

"No talking chemistry while one or both of us is naked," recites Bruce dutifully.

"There," says Betty, holding out the photograph. "Look at your face. There's no smile. Your eyes don't…You don't look like you're feeling much of anything."

Bruce tries to smile. "Is this better?"

"No, that just looks fake." Betty shakes her head. "Don't worry about it."

"Why do you keep bringing it up?"

"I don't know. It's just, it's like there are whole worlds inside your head, things you don't share with anyone, and I've wondered if you share them with yourself."

* * *

Barton rapped on the door to Banner's lab as he entered. The scientist was laid on a gurney in the middle, hooked up to machines that weren't giving them any useful information. Tony Stark was fiddling with some nearby display screens, doing his part in their unspoken agreement to keep Banner's inert form company.

"Hey Stark, Cap wanted-" Barton paused and cocked an ear to the side. "Is that Ricky Martin?"

"Yeah, I thought music might jog his brain, so I accessed the data files in his Starkphone," – Tony had given a top-of-the-line Starkphone to every member of the team, except for Steve, who was on a strict diet of cheap, featureless models until he managed to stop breaking them. "I sorted all of his music by how often he queued up each song minus point-eight times the number of times he skipped past it and then-"

Barton put up a hand to forestall further algebra. "You did some math, I get it. And _Livin' La Vida Loca_ is apparently Banner's number one favorite."

Stark shrugged. " _Pretty Fly for a White Guy_ was number two. Not sure if that makes things better or worse."

Barton chuckled. "Cap wanted you to review some of your training robot designs with him. Well, he said something about 'automatons', but I'm pretty sure he meant robots. I'll take over with Bruce for a while."

Stark saved his work while Ricky Martin sang, _She'll take away your pain / like a bullet to your brain._ He looked back again at Banner, realizing that Barton hadn't been in the room when Banner had told them about his failed suicide attempt.

"JARVIS," said Stark, "switch over to Category C songs." The new music started. "Bruce had over eight hours of panflutes on his phone. Seriously weird."

Barton settled to the floor and positioned himself for push-ups while the panflutes played on.

* * *

It was afternoon group, the touchy-feely one. There were eight chairs in a circle, six occupied by the patients and two for the group leaders, a social worker named Paige and a student named Luisa.

Bruce began the meeting by complaining that _somebody_ (probably Tony) had left their music on. Tony shot back that they didn't get to have any electronics and that was unfair and seriously, why couldn't they and isn't there some kind of an appeals process?

Even Luisa knew better than to let this conversation go on for long. She assured Bruce that there was no music and declared the topic closed.

The theme for the day was grief. Paige was struggling to rein in Donnie/Thor, who was busily assuring his fellow group members that they need not mourn their deceased loved ones as only the fortunate dead could partake of the splendors of Valhalla.

"Don't worry about it, Thor," said Clint after Paige finally convinced Donnie to let someone else speak. "I don't feel bad over my Dad dying at all."

"It's normal," said Luisa (that was how she started a great many sentences), "for grief to come and go."

"It doesn't come and go," said Clint. "He used to beat me and my brother with an electrical cord and I'm not sorry at all he's dead."

"I agree with Clint," said Natasha. "Dead is dead. There's no use fixating on what's past."

"Well, that's all nice for you, Miss Kill-Bill Creepshow," said Tony, "but some of us actually love our families."

"There's no name-calling in group, Tony," said Paige.

"Sorry, Natasha," mumbled Tony begrudgingly.

"Steven," said Paige, "Would you like to contribute?"

"Well, my Dad died when I was young. I don't remember him very much. I wouldn't say I think about him every day, but I guess I miss him on holidays and times like that."

Paige nodded, obviously hoping that another member of the group would respond prosocially to Steve's statement. She was disappointed. Donnie looked ready to speak, no doubt to ensure Steve that his father must be feasting and battling in Vahalla, so Paige turned to Bruce and asked, "What does grief mean to you?"

"Death is just a chemical process," said Bruce. "It's irreversible, but so are many chemical reactions. It's not special." He looked from side to side. "And I can still hear the music. Maybe it's on another floor. It sucks."

Paige ignored Bruce's complaint. "Just because something is a chemical process," she said, "doesn't mean you don't have feelings about it. Oxidation is a chemical process, but I know I would feel very upset if my favorite DVDs burnt up."

Luisa nodded. Her inexperience showing, she added to Paige's statement, saying, "Doesn't that make sense, Bruce? I'm sure you have a lot of feelings about your mother's death."

Bruce stood, knocking over his chair. "This music is fucking annoying," he said, and he walked down the hall to his bed.


	3. Ego

Steve Rogers looked over Banner's inert form. "It just doesn't seem possible that he could be physically fine and…"

Natasha shook her head. "When I worked for SHIELD," she said, "we intervened in a conflict in Cambodia. Warlords had been fighting for territory in these small hamlets, simple places. They would come in, take the men and the older boys, kill the girls and small children, and rape the women. When we arrived, we would ask the women to identify who was responsible. They wouldn't be able to answer because they were blind. Not really blind, though. Our doctors found nothing wrong with them. But you looked around these villages, the little bodies mangled and left in the streets and you could understand how these women came to decide that they just didn't want to see anymore."

"Bruce is stronger than that," said Rogers, almost reflexively.

"According to the most recent estimates, he killed two-point-eight million people."

"No, he saved almost seven billion people."

"A wi-" Natasha stopped herself. "No, not a wise man. A very stupid man who happened to be right in this one instance, he said, 'That's the thing about hearts, they suck at math'."

* * *

Steve was obviously the new leader on the ward. If anything, Tony had been the leader before, in that he had been the one who to suggest games and keep track of which staff would let them get away with what, but Steve led in a different sort of way.

He kept trying to include Bruce, in a way that was more welcoming than annoying. He didn't tease Donnie about the whole 'Thor' business and he somehow commanded Tony's undying loyalty. Natasha never seemed to have a reason to threaten him, and they could see him with his arm around Clint, hunched over like a football coach psyching him up for his imminent trip to the crowded cafeteria.

Bruce watched Steve with interest. He didn't want Steve's affection or his attention or his approval; he wanted to understand how Steve worked. If this had been Crazy People High School, Steve would be the popular kid, but he wasn't clannish or rude. Bruce wondered what Steve's status in his regular school had been – after all, he did end up in a mental hospital.

Most of the time, it seemed hard to believe that Steve belonged there, but there were hints. Whenever Steve left one of his individual therapy sessions, he looked like he had been crying and he usually went to his bunk where he politely requested some privacy for the half hour until skills group.

So everyone left him alone until they circled the chairs and continued their talk on decision making skills.

"I've got a question," said Clint. "Isn't it stupid to go on about decision making when we're stuck in this place where you make all the decisions for us?"

Bruce snorted derisively and whispered to his left.

"Bruce," said Paige in her therapist voice, "we speak to the group, not to ourselves."

"You really think you make decisions when you're out of the hospital?" asked Bruce. "It feels like you do, but you don't. Decisions are from your brain which is just biochemistry, following the laws of physics in accordance with your DNA. Your genes can make you a killer or a freak and you can't just _decide_ that away."

* * *

"Brucie!" calls his mother, knocking lightly on the bathroom door. She opens it just a crack – he's only four years old after all – to see him sitting cross-legged on the floor, a magnifying glass in one hand and a sewing needle in the other. There are thin smears of blood all over the floor.

"I can't find it," says Bruce. "I can't find the bad blood." The /l/ in 'blood' is a little bit rounded, sounds a little bit like a /w/. He pokes another hole in his leg, squeezes the skin, and examines the blood that seeps up. He holds his hands up in a shrug. "All the blood looks the same. Maybe I need a microscope."

"Brucie, no!" says his mother. She takes the needle away from him. "Your father didn't mean it about you having bad blood. Not literally. It was a-" She stops herself before saying 'metaphor' because four-year-olds don't know about metaphor. "It's like when you say it's raining cats and dogs. It's not really. There's no such thing as bad blood. And your father didn't mean it anyway. He was just angry."

"Where does the blood come from? How does the blood get made?"

"God made your blood, Bruce, just like he made the rest of you. And he made you just fine." She lifted him up and sat him on the edge of the tub. "We need to clean off all these cuts so germs don't get in." She pockets the needle and turns out into the hallway to get iodine and Band-aids from the linen closet.

When she returns, Bruce has already wetted a washcloth and he's wiping all the blood from his legs. She kisses the top of his head. "We have to do the iodine," she says, "but I'll draw smiles on the Band-aids when we're done." She hugs him, but he's stiff in her arms.

"I can do it myself," he says. And he does. He wets the cotton ball with the iodine and pats it against each tiny puncture, lips curling inward against the sting, before he carefully applies the bandage and puts the wrapper in the trash.

"Of course you can," says his mother, a little hurt, a little rejected, a little bitter. "You're four years old. Why would you need Mommy to kiss your boo-boos?" She leaves the bathroom and closes the door.

* * *

"You're reading Freud now?" Doctor Leonard Samson raised an eyebrow.

"It came next in the alphabet. I just finished Faulkner. Didn't like it."

"How do you like Freud?"

"I need more historical context. There isn't much of a library here."

"There are certainly elements of Freud that only make sense given the society he lived in. There are other elements that may be universal."

"Universal," scoffed Bruce. "As if we have any idea what goes on in the subconscious of an alien."

Dr. Samson nodded to acknowledge the statement. "Is there anything in his writings that speaks to you?"

Bruce shrugged, face hidden under his overhanging hood. After a moment, he said, "Freud says that you're every character in your dreams, not just the protagonist."

"And you feel that applies to your dreams?"

"It applies to my life."

Samson gestured to the office around himself. "Is this a dream?"

Bruce shrugged again. "You tell me."

This was an odd thought, but it was rare that Bruce agreed to talk about his internal world, so Samson decided to play along. "Let's look at this a different way. Do you believe the people you see here represent you in some way?"

"I think you can make metaphors out of just about anything if you try hard enough."

"But the metaphors we make help us to understand ourselves and the world around us. They might be arbitrary, but that doesn't make them meaningless."

Bruce muttered something to himself.

Samson had learned it was best to ignore it when Bruce talked to himself in individual therapy. They dealt with that on the ward. Instead, he repeated his earlier question. "That statement by Freud stuck in your mind for a reason. Do you see yourself in any of the people around you?"

"Clint," said Bruce.

It was a fairly obvious starting point. Both boys had been abused by their fathers and subsequently orphaned (Bruce's surviving murderous, mad father hardly counted). The importance of the metaphor, though, was what it meant to Bruce. "And how are you and he alike?"

"We both want to be left alone. He would be fine if people would just give him some space."

"And you feel the same way? That you would be fine if people gave you space?"

"I'm just saying, he wouldn't hurt anybody if you guys would stop trying to make him go off the ward."

"And how is that like you?"

Bruce whispered inaudibly to his right.

Samson just waited.

"Natasha's the part of me that likes it. Clint, he doesn't want to beat people up, it's only if they won't leave him alone. But Natasha, she likes being powerful, being angry, being able to punish people."

"You enjoy it when you feel powerful."

"Sometimes. There's a part of me that's like Clint and a part of me that's like Natasha." Bruce's forefinger was poised at his mouth, as if he was contemplating whether or not to bite his fingernails. "And a part of me that's like Thor, too."

"How are you and Donnie alike?"

"Because he's certain. He knows he's powerful."

"In what way are you powerful, Bruce?"

"I'm intelligent. And I'm…determined."

"I notice you haven't mentioned Tony yet. You've known him the longest."

Bruce angled his eyes upward but kept his chin pointed down. It made him look stern and defiant.

Samson eyed him right back. "If you are every character in your dreams, and this is a dream, then there must be some way in which Tony represents you."

"I dunno. Maybe he represents my sex drive. Freud seems fixated on that."

"You've never mentioned frustration or concerns about sex."

"I don't have any. I've never had a girlfriend."

"Now we're talking about two different things: sex and girlfriends. Sex is an experience. A girlfriend is someone to share that experience with."

"If you take his word for it, Tony's got plenty of both," said Bruce dismissively. "But he's still not happy. He keeps trying to kill himself, except not really trying, because if he really wanted to, he would succeed. He just wants attention."

"Attention is one name for that need. It's also called affiliation, companionship, or connection."

"You've come to a conclusion; you might as well say it."

"Maybe Tony represents the part of you that doesn't want to be so alone."

Bruce's eyes were unreadable behind his glasses. He took three long breaths before he said, "Maybe."

"And that leaves us with your new roommate, Steve. How does he represent you?" A key question. Steve was by all appearances the most functional, the most personable, the most healthy, the most "good". Samson wondered if Bruce would be able to identify with any of those traits.

"He doesn't," said Bruce immediately. "We have nothing in common."

Well, that answers that. "I disagree. In fact, I'm going to make it your homework. I see you again on Thursday. Between now and then, I'd like you to try to figure out if there is any way that Steve might represent something about you."

"Yippee," said Bruce with no intonation.

Samson smiled. He liked Bruce, even if he could be frustrating at times. "Things are good with your medications?"

"Actually, no. I want you to up my antipsychotic."

"Why is that?"

"I'm hearing more voices, not just the usual guy."

Bruce had always been able to talk quite calmly and frankly about his symptoms. Dr. Samson found it helpful, though a little unnerving. "What kind of voices?"

"Men mostly, but at least one woman. I can't always make out what they're saying."

"Are they bothering you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"They keep saying that I've killed millions of people."


	4. Superego

Bruce is awake. Something is wrong with the world. He's trying to ignore the little errors, the way textures feel wrong and smells come from nowhere. Lights out was three hours ago, but he's still not remotely tired. He knows he could go find the charge nurse and request an Ativan, but he doesn't really want to sleep and he doesn't really want to go out into the hall.

The voices are coming from the hall. Bruce can hear them, hushed whispers and sad, pitying phrases. They don't sound angry, but Bruce knows very well that some people keep their anger inside. It doesn't really matter what they think. What matters is whether or not it's real, whether or not Bruce really murdered all those people.

It isn't so far-fetched. Bruce has thought about killing people before, but no one notices that side of him because he never acts on it, not where they can see, anyhow. He's on eof those people who keeps his anger inside.

Well, sort of.

The doctors call Hulk a voice in Bruce's head, but Bruce has always heard Hulk coming from next to him, or across the table. Of course, the doctors always say Bruce 'talks to himself' when they know perfectly well that he's talking to Hulk, so clearly they're not all that concerned with accurate terminology.

Bruce has been ignoring Hulk since the new voices started, the ones that call him a killer, and Hulk's kept pretty quiet. That's what Hulk does when you leave him alone.

Bruce's stomach growls. He had only picked at his dinner and now he's paying for it. There are snacks in the hall, he thinks, there always are. Bruce glares at his abdomen, as if it were deliberately conspiring to force him out into the hallway where he can hear "national tragedy" and "unimaginable civilian costs" louder and clearer.

The minutes creep on and Bruce can feel something hot and sour form in his belly. Maybe it's dread. Maybe it's guilt.

"They think you're not real," says Bruce, "but I know different."

"Don't care what they think," says Hulk. "They're stupid."

"Do you think I killed all those people?"

"That's a stupid question."

"No, it's not."

"You think too much," says Hulk in the voice that means he doesn't feel like talking anymore.

The minutes creep on and Bruce remembers his homework assignment from Dr. Samson: If this is all Bruce's dream, and if every character in his dreams is a manifestation of himself, then how did Steve Rogers get in here?

Bruce looks across the room to Steve's bunk. He decides he has two choices: he can figure out what he has in common with Steve or he can go out into the hallway. The lesser of two evils is obvious.

Creeping across the open space is easy. They're only closely monitored if one patient has attacked anotheror somebody's on suicide watch.

"Steve," hisses Bruce in a whisper. "Steve, wake up!" As soon as the word sare out of his mouth, Bruce is aware that this is not a particularly good plan.

"Muhh," groans Steve, rolling onto his back. "Whuhizzit?" he asks, somehow without ever moving his lips.

Now that the conversation, such as it is, has begun, Bruce has no idea what to say. He wishes Hulk would offer up a suggestion, but Hulk is silent.

Steve squints tiredly. "Do you need something?" There are spaces between the words now, and fully-formed consonants.

"I…I…" Bruce stammers. "I…Why are you in here, anyway? You seem fine."

"Can't this wait until morning?" Steve yawns.

"Yeah…yeah, I mean, um…" Bruce backs up. What the hell was he thinking, waking Steve?

Steve sits up in bed. "You don't look so good. Maybe you're getting the flu or something?"

"That's…nothing like me," says Bruce to himself. He doesn't usually notice if other people are sick, and if he does, he gives a more accurate preliminary diagnosis.

"Huh?"

"I need to know why you're here. I need to know what's wrong with you."

Steve looks away. It's the first time Bruce has ever seen Steve look weak or embarrassed.

"You can't be as perfect as you seem. You're in a mental hospital."

"I'm not perfect," says Steve softly. "My mom is…she's really great. She's raised me by herself since my dad died." Steve's brow is furrowed, his jaw is clenched, and he stares determinedly at a spot in the middle of the floor. "And one day, I just-I don't even remember doing it. I just started hitting her. Over and over. I hurt her really badly. I broke bones. One of the fragments went into her eye. They can't fix it. She's going to have a glass eye." Steve looks horrified at his own actions, his mouth hanging slightly open, body arched away from Bruce.

Bruce wrinkles his nose as he considers. "I saw your mom during visiting hours. She didn't have a cast or bruises or anything."

"It happened a few months ago."

"Then why are you in the hospital now?"

Steve looks to the side. "My mom wanted me to come here because I can't stop feeling guilty about it." He glances up at Bruce, then back to the side. "When I was a little kid I had these seizures, not like the ones you see on TV where the person just shakes. They're temporal lobe seizures, and I would sort of do a motion over and over. But I stopped having them when I was six, so the doctors took me off the medication. And then all of a sudden…"

"You beat up your mom," says Bruce, filling in the end of the sentence.

"Yeah. They put me back on the antiseizure medicine and I haven't had another seizure since."

Bruce doesn't know what to say. He stands there, awkward, until he finally comes up with, "Don't worry, I won't tell the others."

Steve shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't change what happened." He looks up at Bruce. "Why did you wake me up to ask this?"

"I…I…" Bruce backs away. "G'night Steve. Thanks."

Bruce goes into the bathroom, planning to splash his face with waterand talk this newest development over with Hulk. Going to the bathroom brings him closer to the hall and he can see things out of the corner of his eyes – body parts and clothes and concrete pylons split down the middle.

Bruce shuts the door behind him before turning the light on. "So Steve is thepart of me that…" he whispers, ignoring what he sees.

"Steve didn'tmean to. You meant to," answers Hulk.

"I had a reason," argues Bruce, even though he's still not sure exactly what he did or what the reason was.

"Sure," saysHulk, "always a reason." He points with his thumb to the shower stall. There's a body there, largely intact but clearly dead. The abdomen is deformed and the skin is mostly contusion. She's middle-aged, dressed in jeans and a turtleneck, no makeup. She reminds Bruceof his mother, who used to have bruises for very different reasons.

Bruce looks at her. "I'm sorry," he says.

"What for?" asks Hulk. "Thought you had a reason."

"I must've. If it wasn't an accident, I must've had a reason."

Hulk snorts. "Can't be much of a reason."

"How do you know?"

"'Cause if it was good, you wouldn't be locked up in a bathroom in the middle of the night."

Bruce stands. He shuts off the lights and opens the bathroom door before padding softly to the threshold between the sleeping quarters and the hallway. There's no one there, and the hallway stretches on forever. "I know the answer now," calls Bruce, echoing down the corridor. "I was right. Everyone in this dream is me." He breathes deeply before going on. "Steve is the part of me that feels too guilty, the part of me that can't let go."

There's a thud, and a dead body lands at his side. It looks strange and familiar, real and unreal at the same time.

"I'm not sorry," says Bruce as another dead body falls to the ground. "I'm not sorry because I had a reason and I did what had to be done."

It's not a hallway anymore– it's the remains of a building and it's littered with bodies. Bruce steps over them. He's not callous, but he's not deferent. He's trying to get to the other side of the rubble because something is happening, something important is happening and Bruce loves science too much to keep pushing reality away, even if reality is full of bodies and blood and wreckage.

"I'm not sorry!" he shouts, because this seems to be the key. "I'm not sorry!" He clambers over broken blocks of concrete, breathing through his nose to keep out the dust. "I'm not going to say it was him, not me. It doesn't matter. It was both of us and it was the right choice!" Bruce still can't remember exactly what he did or why, but he knows that this is what he has to say and this is what he has to believe.

He skids down the side of a huge slab and he finds himself in front of a door, freestanding among the debris.

He looks back at the Hulk, who says, "You don't have the guts."

Bruce turns the knob.

* * * 

Tony had fallen asleep in Banner's lab again. He had been sketching plans for a new Avengers jet, narrating his thoughts aloud for Bruce's benefit while tossing around ideas for a polymer that might support the self-sealing skin he had planned.

They had all made an effort to keep Bruce company, but it was a morbid game of hot potato: no one wanted to be the one there with him when he finally woke up ( _if_ he finally woke up was a thought no one was willing to entertain). Thor compared Bruce's state to the Odinsleep and failed to appreciate the gravity of the situation. Clint and Tony had made certain to mention their poor interpersonal skills in casual conversation. Natasha casually wondered if Bruce had forgiven her for bringing him to the Helicarrier under (partially) false pretenses. This left Steve, who would of course do whatever duty required, but he admitted to Tony over a late-night pizza that while he had seen a lot of death in the war, he was still struggling to get his head around the scale of what had happened.

Maybe Tony had more faith in Bruce than the others did, or maybe he spent most of his time talking to himself in a lab anyway, but he didn't mind his shifts so much.

Tony stretched and angled his neck from side to side, working out the knots that built up when he slept on pilesof equipment.

"What's shakin', eggs-n-bacon?" asked Tony to no one in particular. "G'morning, sleeping beauty." He turned to wink at Bruce.

Bruce, whose eyes were open.

Bruce, who was looking back at Tony.

"Welcome back," said Tony, "it's been a hundred years- nah, I'm just kidding. It's been about a week."

Brucenodded, his mouth hanging slightly open, before he slowly raised his right arm to peel electrodes from his head.

"I don't know if you…I bet you're hungry. We should order Thai food. You like Thai? Thai good, you like shirt? Maybe there's-"

"It's okay," said Bruce, interrupting Tony's rambling. "I know what I did. And it's okay."


End file.
